Tag: Software Testing

Everything has a lifecycle – it’s the law of nature, a series of changes in form that an organism undergoes, returning to the starting state. Birth >> Infancy >> Childhood >> Teenage >> Adult >> Mature >> Old age >> Dead end. A ‘Defect’ in Software Testing also follows a pre-defined stage transitions from its identification till its closure. In Software Testing terms, we call it as ‘Defect Status transition’ or a ‘Defect Lifecycle’!

What are the pre-requisites to writing automation scripts in Selenium? Obviously, you need the tools first. Additionally you need to finalize the programming language you will be using to write test scripts and install the associated IDE. As ‘Java’ is the most popular & widely used programming language across the world (both for development & automation testing) – we will be focusing on writing scripts in Java using Selenium. For that first you need to have the ‘Java Development Kit’, Eclipse IDE and Selenium WebDriver. Let’s start with installing ‘Java Development Kit’, popularly known as JDK.

Why was this not tested? Aaah! QAs were accustomed to testing Apps only on a selection of devices, but carriers required more money for procurement. OMG! Mobile Testing is completely different compared to Desktop Testing. If we understand the distinction and challenges of testing Mobile Apps, it will be a bit easier to tackle.

Independence & Freedom – everybody likes it. Wants it. Fights for it. And finally celebrates it. It gives you the objectivity to express your views & opinions. It is essential for a thriving society where the mind is without fear & the head is held high. As India celebrates its ‘Independence Day’ on August 15th, let’s see what it means for a Test team.

The world is driven by beliefs. It may be in God or Technology. Over a period of time every society lay down a set of philosophies or values for better organization & operation. Similarly, any technology has its own fundamental principles which have been proven right as the time elapsed. ‘Software Testing’ is no different – it also has a set of 7 fundamental principles that are proven right over the time.

Will you start testing in parallel with development or only after the development is completed? What about testing at the code-level? i.e. code reviews to ensure best practices are followed. Will it only be reviews or will you actually run the application to identify defects? How about utilizing some automation tool to ease the process? Or will it be hybrid?

Agree or not, once in a while every one of us enjoy criticizing something – a person or a situation. A conflict between a developer & a tester is not new – it has been there since the inception of Software Testing. After all, nobody likes it when their mistakes are pinpointed & written on the wall. What they don’t understand is – it’s not about ‘You’, it’s about the ‘Software’!

To begin automation, the first step every tester learns is ‘Record-and-Play’. Why? It’s the easiest 🙂 Also, during automation there will be cases when we need to record object using its properties, or continuous mouse movements, or object’s co-ordinates, or to record images of the object. The purpose defines the type of UFT Recording mode you select.

What’s your strategy & approach to career development? Already planned it? Or still planning? You can surely utilize some industry-proven techniques, right? Similarly ‘Software Testing’ is also a process which involves strategy, approach, proper planning & using the best techniques. But before jumping on to these terminologies, first & foremost – Test Strategy & Test Plan are actual documents whereas Test Approach & Test Technique are conceptual. Test Strategy document will include your project’s particular Test Approach, apart from other details.

Let’s take a simple example to understand what is Test Automation Framework. How do you think Indian Democracy, the second largest in the world, is functioning? Is it ad-hoc? Nah! There are basic processes and structures that drive Indian democracy – The constitution of India. What if Constitution wasn’t there? What if people weren’t driven by any guidelines? Yeah! Total Chaos.

In our last post “UFTBasics #6: Object Identification via Mandatory & Assistive properties”, we briefed about how to identify objects in an application using their ‘properties’. The next obvious step is ‘How do you extract the ‘attribute-value’ pair for an object’s properties? This is where “Object Spy” comes to rescue!

Are you a Manual Tester? A Test Lead? Good in people’s management? Or Planning? Whatever! You still need to know the basics of programming and automation tool. You need not be a framework-developer, but every organization now wants a Software Tester who knows both functional test + automation scripting!

The Defect Severity (Technical) - In simple words, how severe is the defect for the application’s quality? Say you click on the ‘Help’ link and the application crashes. Whoaa! Bing-Bang Craaaashh..! Quite a severe defect, right?

The Defect Priority (Business) - In simple words, what is the precedence, importance or urgency to fix a defect? Say you click on the ‘Help’ link and the application crashes. Whoaa! Bing-Bang Craaaashh..! Quite a severe defect, right? But how many of us really click the ‘Help’ link? Business usage statistics show less than 2%. Now what do you think should be the urgency to fix a defect that impacts just the 2% of the end-users? Yeah! Not ‘High’ obviously. There would be other urgent defects to fix prior to this. Defect Priority defines the order in which defects should be fixed, i.e. its impact to the end-users, the business perspective.

About STS

Software Testing Studio is an attempt to share some incredible knowledge from industry leaders & experts, which should be helpful for anybody to start his/her career in ‘Software Testing’ or to progress it further. Apart from the technical nitty-gritties, one can also find some intellectual posts by industry experts sharing their Wisdom.